Tag Archives: Hawaii

Earthquake in Gulf of Alaska sparks brief California tsunami fears

Vehicles are seen during a tsunami warning evacuation in Kodiak, Alaska, U.S., January 23, 2018 in this still image obtained from social media video. Instagram @JUPITERTHEPRODUCER.ASTORIA via REUTERS

By Yereth Rosen

ANCHORAGE (Reuters) – Alaska and parts of western Canada braced for a possible tsunami on Tuesday after a magnitude-7.9 earthquake struck the Gulf of Alaska, sparking evacuations in coastal Alaska and a tsunami warning for California that was later lifted.

In Alaska, people packed into high schools and other evacuation centers after the quake hit shortly after midnight local time (0900 GMT).

Officials had warned residents as far south as San Francisco to be ready to evacuate coastal areas but later lifted tsunami watches for California, Oregon and Washington states as well as coastal British Colombia in Canada.

In Alaska, where a tsunami advisory remained in place as of 3:12 a.m. local time (1212 GMT).

Residents gathered in shelters on Kodiak Island, the closest land point to the quake, around 160 miles (250 km) southeast of Chiniak, Alaska, at a depth of 25 km – considered shallow but with broader damage – according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage from the quake, which was initially measured at magnitude 8.2.

“People are fine,” said Neil Hecht, assistant principal of Kodiak High School, which was sheltering a few hundred people. “Spirits are high. Everyone is doing well here.”

Long lines of traffic formed in coastal communities including Homer and Seward, Alaska, residents warned on social media.

In Homer, a few hundred cars were packed into its high school parking lot. Shawn Biessel, a 32-year-old park ranger, and his mother were in the lot, a few hundred feet above sea level.

“It was a really obvious, pretty strong, long quake. A good rumbler,” Biessel said in a phone interview. “It went on for a solid minute and after a while we thought we should get outside.”

Police drove through Biessel’s neighborhood with flashing lights to alert residents to evacuate, Biessel said.

“Please heed local warnings to move inland or to higher ground,” Alaska Governor Bill Walker said in a statement.

San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management briefly warned residents within three blocks of the Pacific Ocean or five blocks of San Francisco Bay to prepare to evacuate. That warning was lifted when the tsunami watch was lifted.

An initial tsunami watch for Hawaii was canceled.

Japan’s meteorological agency said it was monitoring the situation but did not issue a tsunami alert.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Andrea Hopkins in Ottawa; Writing by Scott Malone and Robin Pomeroy; Editing by John Stonestreet and Jeffrey Benkoe)

Days after Hawaii alert gaffe, Japan issues false alarm about a missile launch

Japan's public broadcaster NHK's false alarm about a North Korean missile launch which was received on a smart phone is pictured in Tokyo, Japan January 16, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese public broadcaster NHK issued a false alarm about a North Korean missile launch on Tuesday, just days after a similar gaffe caused panic in Hawaii, but it managed to correct the error within minutes.

It was not immediately clear what triggered the mistake.

“We are still checking,” an NHK spokesman said.

NHK’s 6.55 p.m. alert said: “North Korea appears to have launched a missile … The government urges people to take shelter inside buildings or underground.”

The same alert was sent to mobile phone users of NHK’s online news distribution service.

In five minutes, the broadcaster put out another message correcting itself.

Regional tension soared after North Korea in September conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test and in November said it had successfully tested a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach all of the U.S. mainland. It regularly threatens to destroy Japan and the United States.

There were no immediate reports of panic or other disruption following the Japanese report.

Human error and a lack of fail-safe measures during a civil defense warning drill led to the false missile alert that stirred panic across Hawaii, a state emergency management agency spokesman said.

Elaborating on the origins of Saturday’s false alarm, which went uncorrected for nearly 40 minutes, spokesman Richard Rapoza said the employee who mistakenly sent the missile alert had been “temporarily reassigned” to other duties.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Hawaii, ACLU ask U.S. top court not to allow full Trump travel ban

Hawaii, ACLU ask U.S. top court not to allow full Trump travel ban

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The state of Hawaii and the American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday urged the U.S. Supreme Court not to allow President Donald Trump’s latest travel ban that would bar entry of people from six Muslim-majority countries to go into full effect after it was partially blocked by lower courts.

Lawyers for the Democratic-governed state and the civil liberties group, pursuing separate legal challenges to the ban, were responding to the Trump administration’s request last week that the conservative-majority court allow the ban to go into effect completely while litigation over the policy continues.

Both sets of challengers said the latest ban, Trump’s third, discriminates against Muslims in violation of the U.S. Constitution and is not permissible under immigration laws.

The Republican president has said the travel ban is needed to protect the United States from terrorism by Muslim militants. As a candidate, Trump had promised “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

In the ACLU court filing, its lawyers said the administrative process that led to the latest ban “does not wipe away the history of the president’s efforts to ban Muslims, especially given the remarkable similarity between the current ban and its predecessors.”

On Nov. 13, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the ban to go partly into effect while the litigation continued, lifting part of a Hawaii-based district court judge’s nationwide injunction.

Separately, a judge in Maryland partly blocked the ban on similar lines in the case spearheaded by the ACLU.

The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in both cases. The high court could act at any time.

Whatever the Supreme Court decides, the two cases will continue in lower courts. The 9th Circuit and the Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals both are due to hear oral arguments on the merits of the challenges next week.

Trump’s ban was announced on Sept. 24 and replaced two previous versions that had been impeded by federal courts.

The ban currently applies to people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Chad who do not have connections to the United States. Those with certain family relationships and other formal connections to the United States, such as through a university, can enter the country.

The ban also covers people from North Korea and certain government officials from Venezuela, and lower courts have allowed those provisions to go into effect.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

Hawaii to resume Cold War-era nuclear siren tests amid North Korea threat

Hawaii to resume Cold War-era nuclear siren tests amid North Korea threat

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – Hawaii this week will resume monthly statewide testing of its Cold War-era nuclear attack warning sirens for the first time in about 30 years, in preparation for a potential missile launch from North Korea, emergency management officials said on Monday.

Wailing air-raid sirens will be sounded for about 60 seconds from more than 400 locations across the central Pacific islands starting at 11:45 a.m. on Friday, in a test that will be repeated on the first business day of each month thereafter, state officials said.

Monthly tests of the nuclear attack siren are being reintroduced in Hawaii in conjunction with public service announcements urging residents of the islands to “get inside, stay inside and stay tuned” if they should hear the warning.

“Emergency preparedness is knowing what to expect and what to do for all hazards,” Hawaii Emergency Management Agency chief Vern Miyagi said in one video message posted online. He did not mention North Korea specifically.

But the nuclear attack sirens, discontinued since the 1980s when the Cold War drew to a close, are being reactivated in light of recent test launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles from North Korea deemed capable of reaching the state, agency spokeswoman Arlina Agbayani told Reuters.

A single 150-kiloton weapon detonated over Pearl Harbor on the main island of Oahu would be expected to kill 18,000 people outright and leave 50,000 to 120,000 others injured across a blast zone several miles wide, agency spokesman Richard Rapoza said, citing projections based on assessments of North Korea’s nuclear weapons technology.

While casualties on that scale would be unprecedented on U.S. soil, a fact sheet issued by the agency stressed that 90 percent of Hawaii’s 1.4 million-plus residents would survive “the direct effects of such an explosion.”

Oahu, home to a heavy concentration of the U.S. military command structure, as well as the state capital, Honolulu, and about two-thirds of the state’s population, is seen as an especially likely target for potential North Korean nuclear aggression against the United States.

In the event of an actual nuclear missile launch at Hawaii from North Korea, the U.S. Pacific Command would alert state emergency officials to sound the attack sirens, giving island residents just 12 to 15 minutes of warning before impact, according to the state’s fact sheet.

In that case, residents are advised to take cover “in a building or other substantial structure.” Although no designated nuclear shelters exist, staying indoors offers the best chance of limiting exposure to radioactive fallout.

The siren tests are being added to existing monthly tests of Hawaii’s steady-tone siren warnings for hurricanes, tsunamis and other natural disasters. Those alerts also undergo monthly tests on radio, TV and cellphone networks.

When emergency management officials initiated the new warning campaign, “there were concerns we would scare the public,” Miyagi said in a recent presentation. “What we are putting out is information based on the best science that we have on what would happen if that weapon hit Honolulu or the assumed targets.”

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Taiwan to boost defense spending, U.S. concerned over possible military imbalance

Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen, (3rd L), on transit enroute to Pacific island allies, stands with delegates and park service members at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S. October 28, 2017.

TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan will increase future defense spending by two percent each year, President Tsai Ing-wen said during a visit to Hawaii where the United States expressed concern over a possible military imbalance in the Taiwan Straits, Taiwan media reported.

In the event that Taiwan purchases arms from a foreign military, the island’s defense spending could increase as much as three percent each year, and could possibly increase further using a special budget if “significant purchase cases” are made, Tsai said in remarks carried by official media on Monday.

Tsai made the comments in response to U.S. concerns about a possible military imbalance in the Taiwan Strait expressed by Ambassador James Moriarty during a meeting. Tsai did not elaborate on when the increased defense spending would start.

Tsai’s comments were reflected by National Security Council deputy secretary-general Tsai Ming-yen, who recounted to official media the conversation between Tsai and Moriarty, who is chairman of the U.S. Mission in Taiwan, about expanding Taiwan’s national defense policy.

Moriarty had expressed concern about China’s double-digit growth in defense investments in the last few years, and that Taiwan would need to address a possible military imbalance over the Taiwan Strait, deputy secretary-general Tsai recounted.

President Tsai in turn replied Taiwan would develop a comprehensive plan in accordance with strategic needs, short-term needs, and long-term plans, to create defense forces on the island that would have “reliable combat effectiveness”.

Tsai visited Hawaii at the weekend on her way to three of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in the Pacific, despite China, which considers Taiwan a wayward province, calling on the United States to stop the trip.

Her trip comes about a week before U.S. President Donald Trump visits Asia.

China has increased pressure on Taiwan since Tsai took office last year, suspecting she wants to push for formal independence. China has conducted more military drills around Taiwan and peeled away its few remaining diplomatic allies.

Tsai described Taiwan-U.S. relations as being “unprecedentedly friendly” in comments released by Taiwan’s presidential office on Monday.

“We are happy to see U.S. promises of peace and stability for the Asia-Pacific region, and from meetings with the United States understand the necessity to increase investment in defense,” it quoted her as saying.

The United States and Taiwan have not had formal diplomatic relations since Washington established ties with Beijing in 1979, but the United States is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself.

Taiwan is well armed with mostly U.S.-made weapons but has been pushing for sales of more advanced equipment, such as fighter jets, to deal with what Taipei sees as a growing threat from China and its own rapidly modernizing armed forces.

China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control. It regularly calls Taiwan the most sensitive and important issue between it and the United States and has been upset by U.S. moves to expand military exchanges with Taiwan and continued U.S. arms sales to the island.

Tsai’s stopover in Hawaii included a tour of a Pearl Harbor memorial, a banquet with the overseas Taiwan community, and joint speeches with Moriarty, the chairman of the U.S. Mission in Taiwan, also known as the American Institute in Taiwan.

It was her second U.S. visit this year. In January, Tsai stopped in Houston and San Francisco on her way to and from Latin America.

Tsai moves on to visit the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, and the Solomon Islands from Monday during a week-long trip and will stop over in the U.S. territory of Guam on her way back to Taiwan.

 

(Reporting by Jess Macy Yu; Editing by Ben Blanchard and Michael Perry)

 

Supreme Court dismisses Hawaii’s challenge to Trump travel ban

International passengers arrive at Washington Dulles International Airport after clearing immigration and customs in Dulles, Virginia, U.S. September 24, 2017. REUTERS/James Lawler Duggan

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday formally dropped plans to hear the last remaining challenge to an earlier version of President Donald Trump’s travel ban targeting several Muslim-majority countries and a ban on refugees, but a fight over the legality of his latest restrictions still could reach the nine justices.

The high court said it will not hear the case brought by Hawaii over the bans, which have expired and been replaced with revised policies. Trump’s 120-day ban on refugees ended on Tuesday and is set to be replaced by a new set of restrictions.

Two lower courts have blocked Trump’s new ban targeting people from eight countries, Trump’s third set of travel restrictions, and the issue could find its way back to the Supreme Court on appeal.

The court on Oct. 10 disposed of the first of two travel ban cases — brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and others in Maryland — after Trump’s earlier 90-day ban on people entering the U.S. from six predominantly Muslim countries expired on Sept. 24. It was a replaced with a modified, open-ended ban involving eight countries.

The justices had been scheduled to hear arguments in the two consolidated on Oct. 10.

Among the issues raised by challengers was whether the travel ban discriminated against Muslims in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on the government favoring or disfavoring a particular religion. The same arguments are being used against the new ban.

Trump has said the restrictions were needed to prevent terrorism in the United States.

The expired ban had targeted people from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. The new ban removed Sudan from the list and blocked people from Chad and North Korea and certain government officials from Venezuela from entering the United States.

If the new restrictions go into effect, they could block tens of thousands of potential immigrants and visitors to the United States. Trump had promised as a candidate “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

U.S. conducts missile defense test off Hawaii coast

(Reuters) – The U.S. Missile Defense Agency and the Navy successfully conducted a missile defense test off the coast of Hawaii, MDA said in a statement on Wednesday.

The test, scheduled well in advance, was done from the USS John Paul Jones and comes a day after North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan.

The test, using Standard Missile-6 guided missiles, intercepted a medium-range ballistic missile target.

North Korea said its missile launch was to counter U.S. and South Korean military drills, and was a first step in military action in the Pacific to “contain” the U.S. territory of Guam. The launch was condemned by the United Nations as an “outrageous” act.

The MDA said the test gives the naval component of the missile defense system higher ability to intercept ballistic missiles in their terminal phase.

Japan has been worried that the United States has so far declined to arm it with a powerful new radar, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

Japan is seeking a land-based version of the Aegis ballistic missile defense system, operational by 2023, as a new layer of defense to help counter North Korea’s missile advances.

 

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

 

Lawyer for U.S. Army sergeant accused of terrorism suggests entrapment

A photograph with a redacted date, and entered into federal court as an exhibit to support the government's motion to keep U.S. Army Sergeant Ikaika Erik Kang in detention without bond, shows what is described as Kang holding the Islamic State Flag after pledging allegiance to the Islamic State. Kang is charged with trying to provide material support to Islamic State extremists. the U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii/Handout via REUTERS

By Hunter Haskins

HONOLULU (Reuters) – The lawyer for a U.S. Army sergeant charged in Hawaii with trying to provide material support to Islamic State extremists said on Thursday his client suffers from mental illness that FBI agents exploited in a “sting” operation leading to his arrest.

Questions about Ikaika Erik Kang’s state of mind and the possibility of entrapment were raised by defense lawyer Birney Bervar in remarks to reporters after his client was ordered to remain in jail without bond.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Kenneth Mansfield in Honolulu ruled after a brief hearing that Kang, 34, posed a flight risk and a danger to the public if released pending further proceedings. The defense did not object to his continued incarceration.

Bervar said after the ruling he told his client: “You’re going to stay in for now, and we’re going to get you evaluated and see what’s going on.”

He said he believed Kang was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or some other mental problem that the Army failed to address properly after Kang returned from deployments to Iraq in 2011 and Afghanistan in 2014.

According to a Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit, Kang was reprimanded several times dating back to 2011 for threatening fellow service members and expressing extremist views while on duty.

The Army referred the matter to the FBI in 2016.

Kang soon became the target of what the FBI described in its affidavit as an elaborate sting operation employing several undercover agents and other “confidential human sources” who posed as Islamic State operatives and sympathizers.

“It looks to me like they’ve exploited his mental illness and thrown gasoline on the fire of his mental illness to get him to commit a crime that they could arrest him for,” Bervar said.

Asked if he was suggesting a case of entrapment, Bervar said: “It sounds pretty close to that, doesn’t it?”

Bervar said he would seek a “full mental health evaluation” for his client.

The government, in support of its motion to keep Kang detained without bond, entered several photographs said to show Kang demonstrating military combat tactics.

Two other images purport to show him kissing and then holding to his forehead a folded flag of Islamic State, also known as ISIS, the militant organization that had seized large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria. He is shown in a third photo holding up an unfurled ISIS flag.

Kang, an air traffic control specialist with extensive military training in hand-to-hand combat, was arrested by the FBI on Saturday following a year-long undercover investigation.

The FBI said he swore allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, made training videos for the extremist group and purchased a drone aircraft intended to help ISIS fighters in the Middle East evade enemy tanks in battle.

Kang is also accused of trying to furnish ISIS with classified and other sensitive military documents that would have assisted the group in its combat tactics.

(Additional reporting and writing by Steve Gorman in LOS ANGELES; Editing by Paul Tait)

U.S. judge narrows travel ban in defeat for Trump

people hugging; travel ban

By Dan Levine and Mica Rosenberg

(Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s temporary ban on travelers from six Muslim-majority countries cannot stop grandparents and other relatives of United States citizens from entering the country, a U.S. judge said on Thursday.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu also opens the door for more refugees and deals Trump a fresh courtroom defeat in a long back-and-forth over an executive order that has gone all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The state of Hawaii had asked Watson to narrowly interpret a Supreme Court ruling that revived parts of Trump’s March 6 executive order banning travelers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, as well as refugees for 120 days.

The Supreme Court last month said the ban could take effect, but that anyone from the six countries with a “bona fide relationship” to a U.S. person or entity could not be barred.

The Trump administration then interpreted that opinion to allow spouses, parents, children, fiancés and siblings into the country, but barred grandparents and other family members, in a measure Trump called necessary to prevent attacks.

Watson harshly criticized the government’s definition of close family relations as “the antithesis of common sense” in a ruling that changes the way the ban can now be implemented.

“Common sense, for instance, dictates that close family members be defined to include grandparents. Indeed, grandparents are the epitome of close family members,” he wrote.

A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment.

Trump’s order is a pretext for illegal discrimination, Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin said in a statement.

“Family members have been separated and real people have suffered enough,” Chin said.

Chin had asked Watson for an injunction allowing grandparents and other family members to travel to the United States. Hawaii and refugee groups also had argued that resettlement agencies have a “bona fide” relationship with the refugees they help, sometimes over the course of years.

The Justice Department said its rules were properly grounded in immigration law.

Watson said the assurance by a resettlement agency to provide basic services to a newly arrived refugee constitutes an adequate connection to the U.S. because it is a sufficiently formal and documented agreement that triggers responsibilities and compensation.

“‘Bona fide’ does not get any more ‘bona fide’ than that,” Watson said.

Melanie Nezer, vice president of global refugee advocacy group HIAS, said the ruling should mean that refugees can continue to be resettled in the United States, beyond a cap of 50,000 set by the executive order. That limit was reached this week.

“We are thrilled that thousands of people will be reunited with their family members,” said Becca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project.

More than 24,000 additional refugees should be allowed to travel to the U.S. under Watson’s order, she estimated.

Watson did not grant everything the state of Hawaii sought, however. He rejected a request to categorically exempt all Iraqis refugee applicants who believe they are at risk due to their work for the U.S. government since March, 2003, as interpreters and translators, for instance.

Watson also refused a blanket exemption for those eligible to apply to a refugee program aimed at protecting certain children at risk in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

The roll-out of the narrowed version of the ban was more subdued than in January, when Trump first signed a more expansive version of his order. That sparked protests and chaos at airports around the country and the world.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco and Mica Rosenberg in New York; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

U.S. appeals court denies Hawaii bid to narrow Trump travel ban

U.S. President Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump are seen at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany July 7, 2017. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

By Dan Levine

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Friday rejected Hawaii’s request to issue an emergency order blocking parts of President Donald Trump’s temporary travel ban while the state sought clarification over what groups of people would be barred from travel.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month let the ban on travel from six Muslim-majority countries go forward with a limited scope, saying it could not apply to anyone with a credible “bona fide relationship” with a U.S. person or entity.

The Trump administration then decided that spouses, parents, children, fiancés and siblings would be exempt from the ban, while grandparents and other family members traveling from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen would be barred.

Trump said the measure was necessary to prevent attacks. However, opponents including states and refugee advocacy groups sued to stop it, disputing its security rationale and saying it discriminated against Muslims.

A Honolulu judge this week rejected Hawaii’s request to clarify the Supreme Court ruling and narrow the government’s implementation of the ban.

Hawaii appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, saying in a filing on Friday that the appeals court has the power to narrow the travel ban while it decides how to interpret the Supreme Court’s ruling.

A three-judge 9th Circuit panel on Friday rejected that argument and said it did not have jurisdiction to hear Hawaii’s appeal.

The 9th Circuit said the Honolulu judge could issue an injunction against the government in the future, if he believed it misapplied the Supreme Court’s ruling to a particular person harmed by the travel ban.

But the judge did not have the authority to simply clarify the Supreme Court’s instructions now, the appeals court said.

In a statement, Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin said he appreciated that the 9th Circuit ruled so quickly, and that the state will comply.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Justice Department lawyers have argued that its definition of close family “hews closely” to language found in U.S. immigration law, while Hawaii’s attorney general’s office said other parts of immigration law include grandparents in that group.

The roll-out of the narrowed version of the ban was more subdued last week than in January when Trump first signed a more expansive version of the order. That sparked protests and chaos at airports around the country and the world.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)